William's Birthday and Other Stories

by Martin Jarvis

  Socrates Popplestone sat at his desk in his study. He had spent an enjoyable day watching a couple of whitethroats, and had sat down with the intention of writing up his notes.

  But he wasn’t writing up his notes. He was thinking about Miss Peache. In fact, lately, he’d begun to feel quite sentimental about Miss Peache.

  He’d picked up a glove that she’d left in church last Sunday, and was – well, treasuring it. He roused himself to begin his bird notes.

  And then – a most amazing thing happened. The door opened and Miss Peache walked in.

  She said, with dramatic quietness, “Mr Popplestone, you know what I’ve come for. I know you took it.”

  A flush of guilt dyed Mr Popplestone’s cheek.

  His hand went to the pocket where he was carrying her glove.

  “Did the verger tell you?” he asked.

  He’d had a suspicion all along that the verger had seen him take it.

  “No,” she said, in a voice of horror. “I’d no idea that he was party to it. Why did you take it?”

  “Because it belonged to you,” he replied.

  She stared at him in amazement.

  “I’ve been carrying it about all day next to my heart,” he went on.

  “Next to your h—? Did you take the ink out of it first?”

  “I never noticed any ink in it.”

  “You couldn’t carry it about all day next to your heart. It’s too big.”

  “Too big?” he said tenderly. “If it fits your hand it can’t be very big.”

  “But I never put my whole hand into it . . . Oh, but I know where it is. A supernatural manifestation has been vouchsafed to me through a little child . . .”

  She walked over to the cupboard in the wall and flung it open. In it reposed a small pile of notebooks and a bottle of cough mixture.

  Miss Peache looked taken aback, but then pointed an accusing finger at Mr Popplestone, and said sternly, “Where is it?”

  “Here,” said the guilty man. With hanging head he brought out a crumpled white glove from his waistcoat pocket.

  “W-w-w-what’s that?”

  “Your glove. I took it on Sunday. I thought you said you’d come for it.”

  “Oh. I – I – I feel rather faint, Mr Popplestone.”

  “Please call me Socrates,” he said as he dashed wildly to the cupboard and got out the bottle of cough mixture to restore her.

  “Certainly,” murmured Miss Peache, “and will you call me Victoria?”

  Then, first making sure that they were ready to receive her, she fainted into his arms.

  The betrothed pair entered the gate of Miss Peache’s house. They had agreed to be married very quietly early the next year.

  “You want looking after, Socrates, dearest,” said Miss Peache fondly. “Oh – good gracious!”

  They had turned the corner of the house, and there on the lawn were four boys engaged in digging up the rose-bed.

  “Good gracious! Boys, what are you doing?”

  William had seen her, and with commendable presence of mind had thrust the silver inkstand into the hole, covering it lightly with soil.

  He turned to her.

  “I’ve had another dream: I fell asleep an’ I dreamed that I dug up this bed an’ found your inkpot, so I came straight along to try. I b’lieve I’ve got to it at last. Yes. Here it is.”

  “How wonderful!” breathed Miss Peache.

  She turned to her fiancé.

  “There. You doubted the boy’s veracity when I told you about him. But isn’t this proof? And such a dear boy!”

  Mr Popplestone looked at William. Then he put a half-crown into William’s hand – a sort of thank-offering to fate.

  The next day William and Ginger slipped quietly into William’s mother’s drawing-room, where visitors were being entertained.

  They intended to hand round the cakestand and, with a skill born of long practice, to abstract enough cakes from it for themselves and for Douglas and Henry, who waited outside.

  There was still lots of time to get the treasure. They knew where it was, anyway. The map was still in William’s pocket.

  A woman with red hair was saying, “Peggy Marsden told me to take down the date so that I shouldn’t forget her birthday – and I did, but I lost the bit of paper. Trixie says it’s the seventh of October.

  “I remember now. I put down P.M. 7.10 on a bit of paper to remind me. It was the bit of paper I’d begun to design Gladys and John’s new garden on. I’d only just begun. I’d given them a copper beech and a cedar tree, and a sundial just between them, and then Peggy came in and I made a note of her birthday on the paper and then lost it . . .”

  William and Ginger crept brokenly out of the room. Brokenly they told the other two of the ruin of their hopes.

  The four of them gazed sadly into the distance, watching their millionaire life vanish into thin air.

  Then William took the half-crown from his pocket.

  “Well,” he said, “it’s enough for one ice-cream an’ ginger beer for us all, anyway.”

  It wasn’t much to salvage from the wreck of their fortunes, but it was something.

  The Outlaws were sitting gloomily in the Old Barn.

  “Well, at least it’s trying to snow,” said Ginger. “It’s years since it snowed properly. In all the books you read it snows at Christmas, but it never seems to in real life.”

  “We had a jolly good time last holidays,” said Douglas.

  “We’d got Brent House last holidays,” William reminded him.

  The summer holidays had consisted of a glorious possession of an empty house and garden. In fact William had said that their occupation of it was a kindness to its owner.

  “We can’t possibly do it any harm,” he had said, “an’ we’ll keep it aired for him with breathin’ in it.”

  It wasn’t till they heard that Brent House was sold to a Colonel Fortescue that they stood back and surveyed their handiwork.

  The result was depressing: broken windows, holes in the lawn, a damaged garden seat . . .

  Colonel Fortescue, when he moved in, had soon tracked down the culprits and had executed severe punishment on William.

  William had sworn to avenge this deadly insult. He had even appealed to his grown-up brother, Robert, to avenge him.

  But Robert flatly refused and had become deeply enamoured of the Colonel’s beautiful niece, Eleanor. But the Colonel was putting every obstacle in Robert’s way. The Colonel disapproved of all Eleanor’s suitors – except Archie, the son of an old friend.

  And Archie had come to stay at Brent House for Christmas.

  So affairs stood when Ginger said, “Never mind. I bet it’ll snow tonight.”

  And Ginger was right. They woke up the next morning to find the ground thickly covered with snow.

  Moreover, Robert had lost his voice and Mrs Brown, finding that his temperature was 101°, put him to bed and sent for the doctor.

  William couldn’t help feeling that it was a judgement on Robert for refusing to avenge him; and so it was with a blithe spirit that William set out to spend the afternoon with the Outlaws.

  After an exhilarating snowball fight they decided to make a snowman. The result was, they considered, eminently satisfactory. The snowman was life-size and well proportioned, and his features, marked out by small stones, denoted, the Outlaws considered, a striking and sinister intelligence.

  “Let’s pretend he’s a famous criminal, an’ have a trial of him,” suggested William.

  The others eagerly agreed.

  They stood in a row and William addressed him in his best oratorical manner.

  “You’re had up for being a famous criminal,” he said sternly, “and you’d better be jolly careful what you say.”

  The snowman evidently accepted the advice, and preserved a discreet silence.

  Then Ginger said, “Couldn’t we get a coat an’ hat for him? He looks so silly like that. You can’t imagine him goin’ into shops
an’ places, an’ stealin’ things, all naked like that.”

  “Yes,” said William. “Tell you what! I’ll get Robert’s coat an’ hat. He’s in bed with a sore throat, an’ he won’t know. I’ll go’n get ’em now.”

  The coat was a new coat of a particularly violent tweed that Robert had bought in a desperate moment, when he felt that he must do something to cut out the wretched Archie or die. Certainly when wearing the coat he was a striking figure.

  William draped it round the shoulders of the snowman. The hat tilted slightly forward at a sinister angle over the stone eyes.

  “Well,” he said, “I bet he looks as much like a crim’nal as anyone could look. Now go on, Ginger.”

  But, as Ginger stepped forward, William interrupted him with, “Look!”

  They looked at the path that led through the field, and there was Colonel Fortescue coming along slowly, his eyes on the ground. It was obvious that he had not seen them.

  “Quick!” whispered William, retreating into the shelter of the wood. “Make snowballs for all you’re worth.”

  He felt at last that Fate had delivered his enemy into his hands. By the time Colonel Fortescue had come abreast with them, they had a good store of ammunition.

  “One, two, three – go!” whispered William.

  The startled Colonel suddenly received – from nowhere, as it seemed to him – a small hail of snowballs. They fell on his eyes and ears, they filled his mouth, they trickled down his neck.

  When the frenzy of the attack abated, he looked round furiously for the author of the outrage. Dusk was falling, but he plainly saw a figure in a coat and hat standing at the end of the field, near the wood. No one else was in sight.

  The snowballs had come from that direction. There wasn’t the slightest doubt in the Colonel’s mind that the figure in the coat and hat had thrown them.

  He strode across to it, trembling with rage.

  The Colonel was short-sighted, but he knew that coat. It had dogged him in his walks with Archie and his niece. It clothed the form of the presumptuous Robert Brown, who dared to try to thwart his plans for his Eleanor’s happiness.

  “You impudent young puppy!” he said. “How dare you . . . You . . .”

  Words failed him. He raised his arm and struck out with all his might.

  Now a thaw had set in and Robert’s tweed coat – which was very thick and warm – had completed the effect. As the Colonel struck the figure, it crumpled up, and lay, an inert mass, at his feet.

  He gazed down at it through the dusk in horror; then, with a low moan, turned and fled from the scene of his crime.

  The Outlaws crept out from hiding.

  “Crumbs,” said William. “We got him all right! Wasn’t it funny when he knocked the snowman down? But, I say, I’d better be getting Robert’s hat and coat back. Let’s take the snowman into the wood, too, then we can pretend we never had one here if anyone makes a fuss.”

  They bundled up Robert’s hat and coat, and rolled what was left of the snowman into the wood. Before they could make their escape, however, they saw Colonel Fortescue returning through the dusk and hastily took shelter again.

  The Colonel was not alone. Archie was with him. They both looked pale and frightened.

  When they reached the spot where the snowman had been, they stopped, and the Colonel looked about him.

  “Great heavens!” he said. “It’s gone.”

  “What’s gone?” said Archie.

  “The corpse. I left it just here.”

  “It couldn’t have gone. You couldn’t have killed him.”

  “I did, Archie, I swear I did. He crumpled up and fell like a log. I must have hit some vital organ. Good heavens, what shall I do? I merely meant to teach him a lesson. I didn’t want to kill him.”

  “You’re sure it was Robert Brown?”

  “Absolutely. I recognised his coat even before I saw his face.”

  “You couldn’t have killed him, sir, or his body would have been here. He may have . . .”

  “Crawled into the woods to die,” supplied the Colonel wildly, “or crawled home. Archie, the police may be out looking for me now. I came straight back to you, Archie, because I knew you’d stick by me through thick and thin.”

  But Archie seemed to have views of his own on that subject.

  “That’s all very well, Colonel,” he said. “I’m – I’m frightfully sorry for you and all that, but – well, but you can’t expect me to mix myself up in an affair of this sort.”

  “You mean you won’t stand by me, Archie?” said the Colonel pathetically. “Think of – Eleanor!”

  “Honestly, sir, I’ve got my reputation to think of. No man can afford to be mixed up in a case of this sort. I’m sorry, Colonel, not to be able to stay over Christmas after all, but if things are as you say, you won’t be wanting visitors. You may not even be at home to entertain them.”

  And the gallant Archie scuttled off through the snow, to pack his things. The Colonel turned and staggered brokenly away towards the Browns’ house.

  William, having heard all this, ran home by a short cut, hung up Robert’s hat and coat and slipped upstairs to Robert’s bedroom to see how he was. Robert was asleep, but his mother, much touched by William’s brotherly solicitude, said that the doctor had left him some medicine.

  “He can’t talk yet, of course,” she said.

  William went downstairs and waited at the front gate till Colonel Fortescue arrived.

  “Robert’s very, very ill,” volunteered William.

  Colonel Fortescue gave a gasp. “He’s – he’s got home?” he said.

  “Oh yes,” said William.

  “Did he – did he crawl home?”

  “I don’t know. I didn’t see him come home.”

  “Have – have they had the doctor?”

  “Oh yes, they’ve had the doctor.”

  “And – does he think he’ll live?”

  “Yes, he seems to think he’ll live all right.”

  “Er – what has he told the doctor about – about what happened to him?”

  “He can’t speak yet,” said William truthfully.

  “He’s unconscious?”

  “Yes,” said William. “I’ve jus’ been up to his room an’ he’s quite unconscious.”

  “But you’re sure they think he’ll live?”

  “Oh yes, they think he’ll live.”

  The Colonel heaved a sigh of relief.

  “I’ll go home now. I’ll come round again in the morning.”

  The Colonel arrived next morning to find William waiting by the front gate.

  “The doctor’s been, an’ Robert’s a lot better today,” said William.

  “I’m glad,” said the Colonel. “And – and now they know the whole story from him, what steps are they going to take?”

  “They don’t know anythin’ from him,” said William.

  “What? Hasn’t he told them anything?”

  “No,” said William, “he’s not told them anythin’.”

  “Oh, noble fellow!” said the Colonel. “Noble fellow!”

  “The doctor says he can come out for a little walk tomorrow,” said William.

  “Well, my boy, if you’ll let me know what time he’s coming out, I’d be grateful to you. And you may play in my garden any time you like.”

  He walked slowly down the road, and William turned four cartwheels to celebrate the final wiping out of the insult.

  Next morning Robert, on emerging from the house for his walk, well muffled and wearing the famous tweed coat, was surprised to find the Colonel waiting for him.

  The Colonel seized his hand and said, “Forgive me, my boy, forgive me. I – I’ve done you a terrible wrong.”

  Robert, remembering the snubs he had suffered at the Colonel’s hands, quite agreed with him, but was ready to be generous.

  “That’s quite all right, sir,” he said. “Please don’t speak of it.”

  “I’m afraid I hurt you very muc
h indeed,” went on the Colonel.

  “Well, sir, I can’t say you didn’t,” said Robert, “but – but please don’t speak of it.”

  “You’re generous, my boy. Generous. Let me accompany you, my dear boy. Take my arm please.”

  Robert, rather bewildered by this sudden change of front, took the Colonel’s arm, and making the most of the wholly unexpected situation, began by talking about Roman Britain – which he knew to be the Colonel’s favourite subject.

  The Colonel was enthralled. They reached Brent House, and the Colonel called Eleanor out to join them.

  Mrs Brown, who was watching for their return, asked the Colonel and Eleanor to come in to tea.

  “I’m so glad to find this boy so much better,” said the Colonel.

  “Yes, he’s got over it very well,” said Mrs Brown.

  “Mrs Brown,” he said, “I think that the time has come to tell you something that only Robert and I know.”

  Robert gaped at him. For one delirious moment he thought that the Colonel was going to publicly offer him Eleanor’s hand.

  “What only Robert and I know, Mrs Brown, is the cause of his recent severe illness.”

  “But I do know, Colonel,” said Mrs Brown.

  “You do?”

  “Yes, his tonsils are too big. I can’t think why, because neither mine nor his father’s are any size at all to speak of.”

  “No, Mrs Brown,” said the Colonel. “His tonsils are not too big. No, the truth is that on Monday afternoon, foolishly, perhaps, this young man snowballed me and, very, very foolishly, I knocked him down so violently I thought I had killed him.”

  He looked round the table. They were all gazing at him.

  Only William was unmoved, his face wearing an expression of seraphic innocence.

  “I – I – I – snowballed you?” gasped Robert.

  “Yes, you young devil! And a jolly good shot you are, too.”

  “I – I – I swear I never snowballed you, sir,” said Robert.

  “Come, come, my boy. Better let me make a clean breast of it. You’ll be denying that I knocked you down next!”